When Cheng Xiongying, a recent immigrant to the United States, saw there was to be a parade in Brooklyn on Oct. 15 celebrating the 450 million who quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), he said he rushed over to attend.
“I just quit the Party today too,” he told a Chinese Epoch Times reporter.
Mr. Cheng was not alone—other parade viewers also told reporters they had quit the CCP.
As a student in China, Mr. Cheng had joined the Communist Youth League but his change of heart began when students began rallying for liberal democracy in China in the late 1980s. That movement ended with the Tiananmen Square events in 1989, where students were brutally killed by the CCP.
Before the parade started, Mr. Cheng met practitioners of Falun Gong who helped him file his withdrawal from the CCP.
“From the Cultural Revolution to today, the CCP has persecuted so many people,” Mr. Cheng said. “Coming to the United States, this place is filled with sunshine, and freedom. This is impossible in China.”
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice that was made public in China in 1992. Before the end of the decade, an estimated 70 million to 100 million people in China were practicing Falun Gong. It teaches the three principles of truth, compassion, and forbearance, and five meditative exercises.
Yet in 1999, the CCP under then-leader Jiang Zemin launched a widespread campaign to “eradicate” the practice. Followers of the spiritual discipline were kidnapped, detained in concentration camps, tortured, and even killed for their organs. The persecution has been widely documented by international human rights groups, and media like The Epoch Times.
The parade in Brooklyn on Sunday was led by Falun Gong practitioners from the New York area, carrying flags and banners, as well as a marching band, and other festivities. The parade participants called for an end to the 24 years of persecution of Falun Gong by the CCP, and raised awareness about “quitting the party” or what is known in Chinese as the “Tuidang” (EndCCP.com) movement that has seen more than 450 million leave the CCP after understanding the atrocities it has committed since its inception.
One onlooker started filming the parade with his phone, chanting, “Down with the Communist Party!”
He told a reporter that he actually came from a family that played a significant role in the CCP, and was filming the parade so his relatives could see the truth about the CCP that people outside of China know.
“The CCP is the heart of evil,” he said.
Yi Rong, president of the Global Tuidang Center, told NTD that the fact that 450 million people have withdrawn from the CCP is significant.
“The CCP is about to collapse,” she said. “We hope this message can inspire more Chinese people to join the wave of quitting the Party, and the CCP can be swept into the garbage heap of history.”
Jin Defu, who also recently came to the United States, said he used to be brainwashed by the CCP until just a year ago.
In 2022, he used the “Freegate” software developed by Falun Gong practitioners in order to bypass the CCP’s firewall, and landed on The Epoch Times.
There, he was able to read the Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party, which has been translated into 33 languages and details the bloody history of the CCP.
After that, he was inspired to read “Zhuan Falun,” the main text of Falun Gong. Everyone in China knows this is outlawed, so he felt he had to read it in secret. But once he read it, Mr. Jin said he felt it changed him.
“My mental outlook is much better than before, and my body is also better than before. It’s much better than before,” he said. “I used to have a short temper and liked to fight with others. After picking up Falun Gong, my mentality has changed and I’m even tempered.”
“The Communist Party has not done a single good thing since it stole power,” Mr. Jin said. The realization inspired him to try to find a way to leave the CCP and leave China, and he said he hoped all Chinese people would read the Nine Commentaries and quit the CCP.
With reporting by Linda Lin and NTD
From The Epoch Times
